Moneyball Movie

Just saw the new movie Moneyball with Brad Pitt.  This film will appeal to baseball fans as well as moviegoers who just like a good story.  The trailer is here:

The film is rated PG-13 and opened Friday night.

Students looking for a way to earn some points can complete the following:

1. Bring in an initialed ticket stub from the film
2. Read the Wikipedia Entry on Moneyball
3. Calculate the probability of a team with a .636 winning "percentage" having a 20 game winning streak (assume that the probability of winning each game is .636...i.e., that each game can be considered an independent event which it technically is not).  Show the calculations that you use.
4. Read the article A Game of Numbers and explain three of the statistics described.

Successful completion of the 4 steps above will earn the student a perfect score equal to a 25 point quiz grade in Statistics OR a perfect score equal to two homework grades in Pre-Calculus or Algebra.  For Pre-Calculus or Algebra, these points cam be used to replace missing or low grades or added in as a separate grades at student's choice.  For students in two of my classes, the points can be used in one class only.

The real guy behind the stats is guy named Paul Depodesta.  The image below is him:

Image by O'Reilly Conferences via Flickr